ANNOUNCER: John 3:16. If I believe Jesus is God’s only begotten Son, am I born again? What exactly needs to be believed to receive the promise of this verse? Thank you, friend, for joining us. This is Grace in Focus from the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. Please visit the website and get your free subscription to our magazine Grace in Focus, which comes out six times per year, and yes, it is free in every respect, except, if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States, you only have to pay the postage. That’s a good deal. We want you to have it. Find it at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion. Here is Bob Wilkin, along with Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we got a question from Y.S. I don’t know if it’s a man or woman, but it’s a question about John 3:16 when it talks about God’s only begotten Son. I’m just going to say he. He says, If we accept the fact that Jesus is God’s only begotten Son, he doesn’t say what he thinks that means, but let’s say it’s the deity of Christ,just as an example, that I believe that Jesus is God. Is that person saved or does that person have eternal life? And I’m assuming, since they don’t say in the question, that they don’t believe in him for eternal life, but I do believe that he’s God. I believe in the deity of Christ. 

BOB: Okay. So John 3:16, “For God so loved the world,” that has to refer to God the Father because he goes on to talk about the Son. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” some translations say one and only, but either way, it’s His only Son, His one and only Son, His only begotten Son. 

KEN: Are you saying unique? Or would you say—

BOB: There is no other. 

KEN: Right. Okay. Do you think it has anything to do with the incarnation at all? 

BOB: Yes. Okay. I think that John 3:16 looks ahead to the incarnation because in verse 17, he says, “For the Son of Man did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” So that’s the incarnation, coming into the world, but it also looks to the cross because in verses 14 and 15, before this, he said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent so also the Son of Man be lifted up.” 

So I would say that this looks both at the incarnation and at the cross. “He gave His only begotten Son,” for what purpose? “That whoever believes in Him,” not whoever believes that, not whoever believes that he is God’s only begotten Son, but that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Well, when you read John’s Gospel, you find over and over again those three elements, believing in Jesus for everlasting life. 

What He’s promising is everlasting life to the believer. And so the idea that we could be born again by believing that Jesus is God’s only begotten Son is incorrect because you could believe that and not believe, as you said, that you have everlasting life. 

KEN: And if we get real technical about this, there’s a lot of cults that will say that Jesus is God. Now, they usually have really messed up views of the Trinity, but what works salvation people have the Trinity down pat a lot of times. They believe in works salvation, you got to be baptized, you got to speak in tongues, whatever you got to do, you know, they can give the Church creed definition of the Trinity. You know, that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, fully God, two natures, one person forever. I mean, they can just spit it out, but they don’t believe in Jesus for eternal life. 

BOB: Let me give you a verse, not from the gospel of John, but from John’s first epistle, 1 John, 2:25. And he says, “And this is the promise, that He has promised us eternal life.” We see that is what we believe him for. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:16, “I’m an example of those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.  And so in John 3:16, answering Y.S.’s question, we need to believe that by faith in Jesus we’ll never perish, but we have everlasting life. 

KEN: That’s the promise. 

BOB: That’s the promise 

KEN: Everlasting life. 

BOB: And that’s the object of faith, is His promise of everlasting life for all who believe in Him, not promise of everlasting life for those who obey Him, for those who follow Him, for those who turn from their sins. Sure we should turn from our sins. We should follow Him. We should obey Him, but that’s not the condition of eternal life. It’s whoever believes in Him, not whoever behaves in him. 

I got an email one time and the guy said, you know, I always tell people John 3:16 says whoever believes in him, not whoever behaves in Him. Behavior is a separate issue from belief. Once we believe, yeah, we should be living lives that bring great glory to Him. And that’s how we’ll find joy in life, right? But no, you cannot be born again simply by believing that Jesus is the only begotten Son. 

We could carry this out. How many names does Jesus have in the Bible, right? He’s the Lamb of God. Well, could you be born again by simply believing that? No. He’s the Lion of Judah. If you believe that, are you born again? No, he’s the Alpha and the Omega.

KEN: He’s a great shepherd. 

BOB: He’s the good shepherd or the great shepherd, just by believing that are you born again? No. He’s the Son of God, which I take it as a messianic title. 

KEN: Son of man. 

BOB: There’s all kinds of titles. Of course, He’s the Christ. He’s the Messiah. Properly understood, if you believe He’s the Christ, then you are born of God, but most people don’t understand what the Christ means. What the Christ means in Johannine terms is explained in John 11:25-27, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me though he may die physically yet, he shall live physically. He’s going to be glorified and whoever lives physically and believes in Me shall never die spiritually. And then he says to Martha, do you believe this? And she explains why she believes it. Yes, Lord, I believe that because I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world. 

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KEN: You know what’s ironic? Well, it’s ironic and it’s also sad. In this question that’s being asked, I’m reminded so often you hear people say you have to believe that Jesus is God. Sometimes, you know, they’ll even go further than that. You have to believe He’s the second person of the Trinity or whatever the case may be or you have to believe in the Trinity. But you don’t have to believe that you have eternal life. Is that the most bizarre thing? As you said, as we look at John 3:16 and also what 1 John says about the promise, here’s the promise of eternal life, it’s so strange that they say you don’t have to believe what He promises you, but you have to believe that he’s God. 

BOB: Yeah, you know, I recently heard a podcast, maybe I can tie this in. These people were saying, and these people are coming from what I would call flexible free grace, but it’s the broader free grace perspective. And they were saying, look, we know that everlasting life is received by grace through faith apart from works. And they said one saving content is to believe that by faith in Jesus, you have everlasting life that can never be lost, but that’s not the only saving content in the New Testament. You can also be saved by believing that Jesus was sent by God. You can also be born again by believing that Jesus is God in the flesh. You can also be born again by believing that Jesus is your Savior. Even if you don’t believe He saved you forever, you believe He’s your Savior, that’s good enough. 

And so a lot of people will say as long as you believe in the identity of Jesus, that’s the expression they use, you’re born again, even if you don’t believe that you’re born again, even if you don’t believe that you’re eternally secure. And the problem with that view is you end up with multiple saving messages, right? That means you’ve got one way to be born again and another way to be born again and another way to be born again and you’ve got four or five messages, but there’s only one message. It’s always by faith in Christ for everlasting life. 

And I think the reason a lot of people block from that, they pull back from that is because they look at their own experience. People identify a day they were born again, many do. They will say it was this date in May in 2004 or this date in May in 1997 or whatever it was, right? Then they remember back to that day and they say, here’s how I know I was born again on that day. And they remember a feeling they had or they remember a change in their life. They stopped cussing so much. I had one guy tell me he knew he was born again at this particular point because he stopped cussing without any effort.

KEN: And he used to cuss a lot.

BOB: And he used to cuss a lot and he got a love for the Bible that he never had before and those two things convinced him he was born again and it wasn’t until five years later when he was in seminary that he believed he was eternally secure. Well a lot of those people say, you don’t need to believe in the promise of life because my experience proves it. I even heard one time a friend of mine said, my parents came from a tradition that did not believe in eternal security and my parents never believed in eternal security but they were the most godly Christians you’d ever know and they’re with the Lord and I know they’re with the Lord. Therefore, I’m sure you don’t have to believe in eternal security. 

KEN: That’s experience again. Well, I experienced the “godliness” of my parents. 

BOB: Right. Or I know I was changed because I stopped cussing or because I read the Bible or because of the X, Y, or Z. The problem with that approach is our assurance is based solely on the promise which He has promised us 1 John 2:25, eternal life. It’s not based on our works because our works are flawed. We’re not perfect. And if you base your assurance on your works, you’re going to lack assurance because you’re going to introspect and you’re going to go, I don’t know. 

KEN: Yeah, maybe you’re not as holy as your parents were. I know they were saved because they lived such godly lies with boy. I don’t live that kind of a godly life. So even if I stopped cussing, I’m not as holy as they are. 

BOB: Here’s a principle I would make. We interpret Scripture in light of Scripture. We don’t interpret Scripture in light of our experience. And we interpret our experience in light of Scripture. So if I think I was born again before I believed that by faith in Jesus, I had everlasting life, I need to change my testimony because I’m wrong. 

KEN: There you go. That’s a good one. 

BOB: And by the way, when I was 16, I invited Jesus into my heart and I had a liver quiver. And when I was 20, I went to a guy with Athletes in Action, Warren Wilkie. And I told him about that. And I said, but I lack assurance. He evangelized me. He shared Ephesians 2:8-9 over and over. I finally got it. And when I got it, you know what I said? Now I’m born again. 

KEN: Now I have eternal life.

BOB: I didn’t go back to when I was 16 and go, I was born again back there because I had the liver quiver. 

KEN: And I invited Jesus into my heart. 

BOB: And I invited Jesus into my heart. But I’m saying, no, no, I was born again once I believed. And you can’t be born again before you believe the right content, which is, that by faith in Jesus, I’m never going to perish, but I have everlasting life. 

KEN: Amen. And eternal life is all received by grace. So remember, keep grace in focus.

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